When General Motors slayed half of its U.S. brands during the government-led bankruptcy in 2009, many wondered which geniuses decided to save Buick and GMC while killing Pontiac. Now, fresh from the uncensored lips of former GM vice chairman Bob Lutz, we can blame the government.

Lutz, speaking at a small event at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles over the weekend, said the “Feds” wanted to gut Pontiac and most of GM’s other divisions while in discussions for a takeover by the U.S. Treasury. While Lutz didn’t name a specific person in the Obama administration, we can assume “car czar” Steve Rattner—later charged with civil fraud while managing New York State’s pension fund, eventually settling and paying a $10-million fine—helped pull the trigger.

Lutz said the U.S. wanted to drop Buick and GMC—a move we would have supported to rid GM’s grandfatherly, badge-engineered persona—but since Buick was so popular in China, the Chinese wouldn’t have continued buying Buicks without the cars being built here (really) and GMC was already successful at hawking marked-up pickups and SUVs to wealthier buyers. Lutz said he pleaded with officials to keep Pontiac but when asked how much the brand made over the past 10 years, GM could only say “nothing.” It was the final bullet.

Despite signs of Pontiac’s revival in offerings such as the G8, the the marque’s unprofitability made its demise a stipulation of GM’s receiving of any federal aid.

“When the guy who’s handing you a check for $53 billion says I don’t want Pontiac, or drop Pontiac or you don’t get the money, it doesn’t take you very long to make up your mind,” he said. “But I think it is a shame. Pontiac was on its way back. It was killed before the plant could really sprout and blossom. It was well on its way.”

Even worse is what could have been the next-generation G6, not the rental special that GM begged Oprah to hand out on her show, but a rear-wheel-drive sports sedan based on what ultimately became the Cadillac ATS.

“We were embarked on a strategy to make Pontiac different from the rest of GM in that Pontiac would not get any front-wheel-drive cars. It would all be rear-wheel-drive,” he said.

Had Pontiac cut the rancid trimmings off its 2009 lineup while keeping the Solstice and the G8, it could have survived as a lower-volume performance niche brand next to pricier Caddys and cheaper Chevys. Bring back the screaming chicken—those Firebird body kits for the latest Camaro are a sad homage to the real thing—and Pontiac could have been respected again.

“We could have moved Pontiac away from every other American volume brand and really started positioning it as a very attractive U.S. alternative to some of the, and obviously at much lower prices, than the European rear-wheel-drive cars,” Lutz said.

Of course, had GM not accepted the $49.5-billion bailout and entered bankruptcy without sacrificing itself to unions, it would have been free to choose Pontiac’s fate. And now that we have the Chevrolet SS, you could argue that Pontiac would still be unnecessary. What’s done is done, but we’re still upset.